Midday settled over Solitude Spire in a blanket of cool, silver fog.
The apocalyptic rumble of ten thousand storm wyverns had completely vanished from the skybox.
Down on the clover lawn, a colossal serpentine shape lay coiled across the grass.
It was Ignis-Azureus, the Azure Dragon King.
The ancient sovereign of the Upper Strata had shrunk his three-mile celestial form down to a modest three hundred feet.
His sapphire scales, normally crackling with realm-shattering plasma lightning, were dull and submissive.
His magnificent lightning antlers were pressed flat against the wet turf.
Every few seconds, the great beast let out a trembling, pathetic draconic whimper.
*Whine... shudder... sniff.*
Behind him, Herald Ao-Kun knelt with his snout buried in the mud, shivering like an overgrown blue salamander.
Neither dragon dared to look toward the covered porch.
Just three hours ago, the human youth had stepped out in faded hemp robes, thrown half a bucket of dish rinsewater into the sky, and casually declared that quiet hours began at two in the afternoon.
The dishwater had contained traces of Primordial Solar Dew.
To a mortal, it was waste runoff.
To a dragon whose cultivation had stagnated for four thousand years, it was an elixir of cosmic rebirth that dissolved centuries of bottleneck impurities in half a second.
Ignis-Azureus had wept.
He had immediately prostrated his entire lineage.
Now, the Dragon King raised his massive head by a single inch, his golden slitted eyes swimming with desperate devotion.
"Exalted Sovereign Vance!" Ignis-Azureus rumbled, his voice carefully pitched to a submissive whisper. "This lowly worm has realized the vastness of heaven and earth! Please, grant this humble beast a sacred duty! Let me guard your celestial domain for ten thousand millenniums!"
Felix Vance stood at the edge of the porch, wearing his loose gray tunic and his favorite pair of woven-straw slippers.
He was holding a long bamboo stick with a bent piece of wire tied to the end.
He didn't look at the dragon.
He didn't even acknowledge the grand pledge of ten thousand millenniums of celestial vassalage.
Instead, Felix was scowling up at the cedar roofline of the cottage.
"Man," Felix sighed, poking the tip of the bamboo stick into the wooden roof gutter. "What an absolute pain."
*Plop.*
A soggy clump of black, rotting pine needles fell from the gutter trough, splashing onto the flagstones inches from Felix's toes.
A few stray needles landed directly on the sleeve of his clean hemp tunic.
Felix brushed them off with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Every single autumn patch, it's the same garbage," Felix grumbled under his breath. "The thousand-year-old iron-pines drop forty tons of needles. The wind blows them onto the roof. Then it rains, the needles turn into wet sludge, and the gutters overflow."
He poked the bamboo pole again, trying to reach a stubborn knot of moss wedged beneath the eaves.
The bamboo pole bent.
His arm grew tired after three seconds.
Felix lowered the pole, his stamina bar visibly flashing yellow in his mind.
"Cleaning gutters is the worst chore in gaming history," Felix muttered. "High effort, zero EXP, terrible loot drops. Why didn't the builder install mesh leaf guards?"
Down on the lawn, Ignis-Azureus strained his draconic ears, trying to comprehend the master's divine words.
The Dragon King's mind spun into frantic overdrive.
*The Sovereign speaks of the Ancient Slag!* Ignis-Azureus thought, his dragon soul vibrating with revelation.
*The iron-pines are ancient roots of the world mountain!*
*Their shedding represents the karmic debris of the mortal realm!*
*The roof of this sacred shrine channels the celestial rain of the Great Dao!*
*Yet the canals of destiny are obstructed by the decaying remnants of worldly dust!*
*The Sovereign stands with the Rod of Cosmic Purification, contemplating the cleansing of the heavenly waterways!*
*This is not idle grumbling! This is a divine test of my devotion!*
Ignis-Azureus raised his snout higher, his whiskers twitching with frantic zeal.
"Great Sovereign!" the Dragon King pleaded softly. "Do not dirty your immortal hands with the foul detritus of the world! Allow this unworthy servant to bear the burden of the purification!"
Felix paused.
He looked over the porch railing at the three-hundred-foot blue lizard taking up half his front yard.
He looked at the dragon's long, flexible serpentine body.
Then he looked back up at the thirty feet of clogged wooden gutters running along the roofline.
"Hey," Felix said, pointing the bamboo stick at the dragon. "Can you reach the roof edge without smashing the shingles?"
Ignis-Azureus gasped.
*He acknowledges me!* the dragon screamed internally.
"I can, Sovereign!" Ignis-Azureus whispered reverently. "My spatial levitation allows my physical form to drift lighter than morning dew! Zero mortal tiles shall bear my weight!"
"Cool," Felix said, tossing the bamboo pole into the garden shed corner. "Because I'm not climbing a wooden ladder in this drizzle. Can you blow some warm air into those gutters and clear out the wet leaves? Just warm air. Don't use fire. If you torch the cedar roof, I'm turning your Volume Slider to negative one hundred percent."
Ignis-Azureus felt a chill of pure terror shoot down his three-hundred-foot spine.
Negative one hundred percent volume.
To be excised from reality's soundboard forever.
"I swear upon the Primordial Thunder Dragon Clan!" Ignis-Azureus declared, his voice trembling with solemn gravity. "Only the purest, gentlest solar warmth shall touch the sacred eaves!"
The Dragon King uncoiled his massive form with breathtaking grace.
Despite weighing several hundred tons, his body rose into the silver mist with zero sound, drifting upward like an undulating ribbon of azure silk.
He hovered directly along the eastern roofline.
With surgical precision, Ignis-Azureus draped his long, serpentine body parallel to the cedar eaves.
His soft underbelly hovered exactly two inches above the wooden shingles, resting upon a microscopic cushion of localized anti-gravity.
Zero shingles cracked.
Zero nails groaned.
The Dragon King lowered his massive snout until his nostrils were aligned perfectly with the cedar gutter trough.
Inside his chest, Ignis-Azureus ignited his primordial dragon core.
Usually, when an Azure Dragon King breathes, it unleashes the Nine-Sky Solar Plasma Breath—an apocalyptic beam capable of vaporizing continental shelf boundaries.
Now, Ignis-Azureus gritted his fangs, channeling ninety-nine point nine percent of his divine power inward to suppress the blast.
He filtered the celestial flame through seven layers of draconic restraint, reducing the apocalyptic inferno into a soft, steady, perfectly regulated stream of warm solar air.
It was essentially a three-hundred-foot, divine hair dryer.
*Fwooooooooooosh.*
The warm solar wind surged through the wooden gutter trough.
The effect was instantaneous and miraculous.
The wet, rotting clumps of pine needles dried in an instant.
The damp green moss turned to light, harmless dust.
With a soft, rushing whisper, the entire contents of the gutter were lifted cleanly into the air.
Ignis-Azureus curled his whiskers, generating a tiny magnetic vortex that captured every single airborne leaf and needle.
He directed the swirling cloud of organic debris in a graceful, curving arc over the roofline, dropping it with pinpoint accuracy directly into the compost heap behind Lord Nether-Bane's vegetable patch.
*Puff.*
The compost pile received three bushels of perfectly dried pine mulch.
The roof gutters were left bone-dry, fragrant with cedar oil, and polished clean enough to reflect the sky.
Ignis-Azureus carefully slithered along the northern and western eaves, repeating the process with meticulous precision.
*Fwoooosh... fwoooosh... fwoooosh.*
Within two minutes, every single inch of the cottage's drainage system was spotless.
The Dragon King curled back down toward the front lawn, resting his chin on the grass and looking up at Felix with the eager, hopeful eyes of a golden retriever waiting for a tennis ball.
Felix leaned over the porch railing.
He looked at the gutters.
He ran a finger along the inside of the front wooden trough.
Zero sludge.
Zero wet pine needles.
The wood felt warm, dry, and lightly toasted, like a freshly laundered towel pulled from a dryer.
"Huh," Felix murmured, his eyebrows lifting slightly. "Not bad at all. You even put the leaves straight into the compost bin."
He pulled out his obsidian AetherDeck to check the status.
The screen lit up with a crisp, amber notification:
Felix tapped his Inspector HUD, focusing on the massive dragon coiled across his lawn.
【Target: Ignis-Azureus (Roof-Cleaning Stance)】 【Species: Primordial Azure-Storm Dragon King】 【Current Occupation: High-Altitude Gutter Vacuum & Blower】 【Inspector Note: A mythical calamity beast capable of drowning continents in plasma storms. Currently overjoyed to function as a municipal leaf blower. Highly effective at exterior property maintenance. Requires zero fuel beyond occasional table scraps.】
Felix nodded to himself.
"Decent utility unit," Felix said. "Way better than spending twenty minutes on a rickety wooden ladder with a garden trowel."
He looked down at the dragon.
"Alright," Felix said casually. "You can hang out around the roof if you want. Just keep the gutters clear whenever the wind blows. And don't block the garden gate—Nether-Bane needs room for his wheelbarrows."
Ignis-Azureus felt a wave of transcendent ecstasy crash through his ancient soul.
*He accepted me!* the Dragon King wept internally, his golden whiskers quivering with profound bliss.
*I am the Guardian of the Sacred Eaves!*
*I am the Purifier of the Celestial Conduits!*
*The Sovereign has granted me the right to dwell beneath the overhang of the True Dao!*
Over by the kitchen doorway, Lyra Ashford stood clutching a polished brass tea kettle, her knuckles white with awe.
Her chest heaved as she witnessed the scene.
*Senior Brother Vance’s cosmic wisdom defies mortal imagination,* Lyra thought, her eyes shining with sacred reverence.
*The Azure Dragon King commanded the storms of the Upper Heavens.*
*He arrived with ten thousand war beasts to demand the sovereignty of the sky.*
*Yet Senior Brother did not execute him with a stellar flare.*
*He did not imprison his soul in the void.*
*Instead, he humbled the proudest sovereign of the beast realm by assigning him to cleanse the roof of mortal dust!*
*To reduce an ancient storm god into a temple sweeper... this is not punishment!*
*This is the Dao of Complete Ego Severance!*
*By sweeping the eaves, the Dragon King sheds his arrogance and cleanses his own karmic meridians!*
*Senior Brother is cultivating the dragon’s soul through humble domestic service!*
Lyra bowed deeply toward the porch, her voice filled with sacred devotion.
"Senior Brother’s compassion is truly limitless," Lyra murmured softly. "Even the fierce beasts of the storm find salvation beneath your roof."
Felix walked back to the low cedar table.
Under the front left leg, the purple Sovereign Heart Seal held the table perfectly steady against the floorboards.
The glowing Soul-Pearl held his gacha notes firmly in place against the damp breeze.
Felix reached out and lifted the white porcelain Infinite Cozy Teacup.
The Nine-Sun tea inside was steaming gently, held locked at precisely 68.5°C by its absolute thermodynamic anchor.
He took a slow, relaxing sip.
*Slurp.*
The rich, nutty warmth spread through his chest, soothing his tired bones.
Beside the porch post, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood frozen on his brass perch.
The black rubber stopper remained firmly clamped between his brass mandibles, holding his copper tip in an unbreakable mute.
His brass gears turned with quiet, rhythmic serenity: *tick... tick... tick.*
Up along the roofline, Ignis-Azureus curled his three-hundred-foot body tightly beneath the cedar overhang, resting his snout between his foreclaws.
He felt the gentle, soothing warmth radiating from Felix's 1.0-Earth-Mass Sol-Class stellar core, soaking into his scales like a warm bath.
The Dragon King closed his eyes and let out a soft, contented puff of warm steam into the gutters.
For the first time in four thousand years, the Master of the Upper Strata felt completely at home.
And down on the porch, Felix kicked off his slippers, climbed back into his cloud-silk hammock, and pulled his faded straw hat down over his face.
"Gutters cleared," Felix mumbled into the brim of his hat. "AFK mode back on."